Thursday, November 30, 2017

@Virginia 49, Wisconsin 37 - I think we accidentally created a time rift by putting these two teams together, and actually played this game in the year 1957 before traveling back to present day

@Syracuse 72, Maryland 70 - my rule of thumb in these games is that home wins are nice, but don't move the needle greatly, while road wins are golden. Road losses aren't too damaging as long as you don't stack up a bunch on top of each other. So, this is business as usual for both

South Carolina 78, @FIU 61 - road wins are never trivial

Not a lot of other notable results....Marquette over EIU in a near-disaster in OT....Oakland wins a roadie at Oral Bob. Belmont loses at home to Lipscomb, so they may be merely of ordinary strength this year.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

non-tourney crap:
Texas A&M 75, @USC 59 - and there's a signature road win, and even another disaster for the Pac-12

Nike money grab - Motion bracket
Duke 87, Florida 84
Gonzaga 76, Texas 71 (OT) - more important for Gonzaga than you think
Portland St 87, Stanford 78 - uh oh
Butler 67, Ohio St 66 (OT) - we'll need to see the bubble in February to know how important this one is. In fact, I think we can apply this statement to all the Nike money grab games. The values of these wins will change, so don't get caught up in definitive analysis of these results yet

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Battle 4 Atlantis:
Purdue 89, Arizona 64 - your last place game in Atlantis! Purdue salvages something, but maybe not if this is the Arizona we get this year. This could actually be big trouble for a conference already light on impact teams
Western Kentucky 63, SMU 61 - yikes for SMU; losses to WKU and UNI, but who the hell knows how their win over Zona will translate in March
Tennessee 67, NC State 58 - Tennessee picks up a decent win to go along with their signature win (Purdue)
Villanova 64, Northern Iowa 50

Emerald Coast Classic:TCU 69, New Mexico 68
St Bonaventure 63, Maryland 61 - swing game, A-10 finally gets one of them in their ledger. Actually both games here felt like swing games, so no disaster for UNM/Maryland...yet

Alaska:
Central Michigan 56, Cal Poly 53
CS-Bakersfield 64, Idaho 62

one non-tourney game worth mentioning:Nevada 67, @Hawaii 54 - if you haven't noticed, that's 3 true road wins, plus home wins over Idaho (Big Sky fav) and URI and Davidson. No single result is tremendous but the sum of the parts is really starting to look good

Battle 4 Atlantis
SMU 66, Arizona 60 - ok, now it's time to worry about Arizona. One flameout is fine, two is bad. Remember the Pac-12 is down, and Arizona is bleeding away quality win chances
Western Kentucky 77, Purdue 73 - and what is Purdue doing losing this game? This tourney is now a disaster for them too, although PU has access to resume building chances in conference play. Arizona/Purdue is a dumb 7th place game and someone's getting their resume destroyed and someone's gonna salvage theirs
Northern Iowa 64, NC State 60 - all of a sudden it's two quality wins for UNI and access to Villanova and a signature win. This is one weird tournament
Villanova 85, Tennessee 76 - Nova's gotta be wondering what value they're getting out of this tournament. And it's Atlantis!

NIT Tip-Off:
Rhode Island 75, Seton Hall 74 - might be the signature win of the day. Given how down the A-10 is, URI desperately needs a quality win of any kind on the ledger
Virginia 68, Vanderbilt 42 - bad, bad start to the year for Vandy, they're well off the bubble pace

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Non-tourneys:
@Providence 66, Belmont 65 - life is tough for Belmont. This is a campus game for the 2K Classic, Belmont couldn't even get into the main draw of a tourney. Then lose by a point to a legit tourney team, losing whatever small chance they had at bubble relevancy. Such is life

Tourneys everywhere:

Battle 4 Atlantis:
NC State 90, Arizona 84 - well there's one upset
Tennessee 78, Purdue 75 (OT) - and there's another
Northern Iowa 61, SMU 58 - no worries for SMU, they get their quality win chance against Zona anyways. UNI kind of gets snookered here, any chance at a legitimate at-large profile now all of a sudden requires a tourney win
Villanova 66, Western Kentucky 58 - a disaster for Nova. The other 2 best teams lose, and are on the opposite side of the bracket. Tennessee, UNI, and NC State are decent, but Nova loses all access to signature win chances. Meanwhile Arizona and Purdue are still on a collision course and both have a chance to salvage a quality win out of this trip. Life ain't fair

Maui:
Notre Dame 67, Wichita St 66 - UND walks away with the signature win here, Wichita will need to find a signature win elsewhere to use to get a top-2 seed
Marquette 94, LSU 84 - not an awful tourney for Marquette either, they grab 2 decent wins out of it
Michigan 68, VCU 60 - not great for a VCU team that's looking at no help in A-10 conference play
Chaminade 96, California 72 - wait, what? WHAT?!?!?!

Cayman Islands:
Cincinatti 78, Wyoming 53 - again, what a useless tourney for Cincy
Iowa 95, UAB 85
South Dakota St 95, Buffalo 80
Louisiana 82, Richmond 86 - not sure what to make of this tourney overall. Lot of results that don't really help any resumes enough. Iowa punted 2 games to mid-majors. Louisiana finishes 3rd but Richmond is not very good and Iowa was their other win. Ouches all around except Wyoming, I guess

Thursday, November 23, 2017

wins of note:North Carolina 96, @Stanford 72 - UNC always seems to do this. Tacks on a road game to the schedule en route to whatever tournament they're doing. And road wins are never trivial
@Syracuse 74, Oakland 50 - Oakland was a trendy mid-major pick but they're not putting up scores/results that would follow
Rider 67, @George Washington 65 - just in case you weren't sold on the catastrophic start to the year for the A-10
@Missouri 67, Emporia St 62 - this combined with injury news likely means endgame for Missouri's relevance in this blog for this year

Tournaments everywhere:

Maui:
Wichita St 92, California 82
Marquette 94, VCU 83 - one of the hidden swing games that make or break a resume. Marquette moves to the side of the bracket with Wichita and Notre Dame. VCU loses access to a signature win chance. It's a disaster for the A-10, who is in real trouble so far in the non-con
Notre Dame 83, Chaminade 56
LSU 77, Michigan 75 - the same situation as the Marquette/VCU game. LSU gets access to signature win chances, Michigan doesn't. At least for Michigan, B1G play should compensate

Cayman Islands:
Cincinnati 73, Buffalo 67 - this tournament isn't the greatest for Cincy. They get a tanking Richmond team next, and Louisiana/Wyoming is on the other half of the bracket. 3 neutral site wins are always positive, and none of the teams are a zero, but there's no elite opponent that they can grab a signature win from here
Louisiana 80, Iowa 71 - Louisiana might actually be the better team here, I think
Wyoming 77, South Dakota St 65
Richmond 63, UAB 50 - actually a really bad loss for UAB and CUSA, given Richmond's struggles

Hall of Fame Classic:Baylor 70, Wisconsin 65 - every Tier 1 win matters
Creighton 100, UCLA 89 - UCLA is in a bit of a weird spot, resume-wise, with suspensions. Not sure how to value this win for Creighton

Puerto Rico Tipoff:
Illinois St 84, Tulsa 68
Iowa St 75, Boise St 64 - this one stings for Boise. The MWC is not rife with quality win chances, so every one of these by the boards hurts a lot
South Carolina 79, Western Michigan 66

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Real life is really starting to get into the way....we'll get caught up soon enough, don't worry. Although maybe it's a nice thing to do it this way - get separation from the results, and look back and see what mattered with more clarity.

Road wins by mid-majors that are only of interest to me: Middle Tennessee over Tennessee St, Charleston over Charlotte, Murray St over Wright St, Nevada over Pacific

@Toledo 87, Oakland 74 - one of the MAC favorites hold off the Horizon favorite
@Maryland 80, Bucknell 78 - Bucknell took the LBSU playbook this year, playing a brutal schedule and getting punished for it. I don't advise that script for most teams.
UT-Arlington 89, @BYU 75 - a decent road win, and a bad sign for the WCC. Gonzaga beats a MWC team (USU) if you consider that noteworthy

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Signature win of the day:
Xavier 80, @Wisconsin 70 - likely will end up as a Tier 1 win; you can never have a shortage of those

potent potables:
@St John's 79, Nebraska 56 - we'll need to pay attention to St John's this year, probably
St Louis 77, Virginia Tech 71 - goes down as a solid neutral site win for the A-10 and a minor disaster for Va Tech (that can be recovered from, though)
Providence 77, Washington 70 - another neutral site game, although it feels like UW might not be good enough to make this win matter
Belmont 69, @Middle Tennessee 63 - likely won't impact the bubble, but the OVC favorite goes on the road to beat the CUSA favorite. Interesting
@Utah 77, Missouri 59 - road loss, so no big deal, but if I were Mizzou, I wouldn't want to give up bubble equity during the non-con in spots like this

Puerto Rico Tip-Off:
Illinois St 69, South Carolina 65 - the one common theme with these tournaments is: DON'T GET TRAPPED ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BRACKET. South Carolina did untold amounts of damage to its resume with this. One bad loss and two bad games upcoming, while the other side of the bracket has quality win chances
Boise St 58, UTEP 56 - this also hurts Boise, by the way. BSU is a team that needs to stack quality win chances on top of each other, and just had one taken away from them
Iowa St 104, Appalachian St 98
Tulsa 81, Western Michigan 74
Big early tourney for Boise, who needs to pile up quality wins before they step into the MWC

Charleston:Auburn 83, Indiana St 64
Temple 76, Old Dominion 65
Clemson 81, Ohio 76
Hofstra 72, Dayton 69 - not good for Dayton
Interesting little tournament here, as any loss by anybody could be perceived as a bad loss, but the winner will pick up 3 neutral site wins and get a modest resume boost

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Signature wins of the day:
Duke 88, Michigan St 81 - truth of the matter is, these wins mean less than you think. Both teams have treasure troves of signature win chances coming, so the impact of this will be diminished over time. Still, it's a useful chip to have, but only if one of them is competing for a spot on the 1 line, or both are ranked near each other. Head-to-head doesn't seem to impact the committee that much
Kansas 65, Kentucky 61 - same deal here, especially with an improved SEC. These chances aren't as critical to UK anymore

wins of note:
Purdue 86, @Marquette 71 - if you learn anything from this blog, it's that road wins are never trivial

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

wins of note:Middle Tennessee 72, @Murray St 67 - road wins are never trivial
@Nevada 88, Rhode Island 81 - good matchup of conference favorites. The home team winning probably means nothing significant to either's resume. Well, maybe this hurts URI more than you'd think; the A-10 is struggling as a whole so far

catastrophic losses:
Jacksonville St 94, @Richmond 61 - ok, so I think we've established Richmond is not good this year
Montana 83, @Pittsburgh 78 - Pitt probably wasn't going to survive the ACC, but it's always nice to mentally check off a team this early for my purposes
Milwaukee 74, @Iowa St 56

not as hurtful as you think:
@Belmont 69, Vanderbilt 60 - good on Vandy for playing a true road game; this isn't going to hurt them as much as you'd think. A better SEC will give them chances to rebound, and the committee will forgive the occasional road loss like this

trivial results:
Wichita St pounded CAA favorite Charleston....St Mary's over New Mexico St....USC over NDSU....Notre Dame over Mt St Mary's. A motley collection of decent-to-good mid-majors go down. MEAC favorite Morgan St did win on the road at South Florida. FGCU beat Siena on the road, they might be semi-good. Old Dominion beat James Madison on the road. One of the MAC favorites, Western Michigan, lost on the road at South Carolina. Wyoming beat Oregon St, whoop-de-doo.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Get used to the slower pace of the blog updates, at least for the first couple months.

@Kentucky 73, Vermont 69 - if nothing else, it helps cement Vermont's status on the 13 line assuming they eventually get through the A-East
@Washington St 86, Texas Southern 84 (OT) - everyone's favorite SWAC team showing well
@Arkansas 101, Bucknell 73 - along the same veins of mid-major stars, Bucknell hasn't shown as well through two games so far

lol of the day: Le Tourneau 99, @Northwestern St 84

...not much else on this day. Plenty of name teams played, they all had service holds at home over relative cupcakes.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

...there's not a lot going on here today. Most teams played yesterday, so you're not going to find any results of impact. FGCU beats Illinois St at home...that's what, the 2nd most impactful score of the day? Pass.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Thus begins the daily recaps on the blog. A quick reminder to what we do with these:

1) We don't bother mentioning cupcake wins, unless they're notable for some reason. Duke beating East Bumfuck St isn't notable enough for me to waste the time during typing these things.
2) We pay much more attention to bubble teams and try to feature wins that will matter in March.
3) Remember home wins are diminished and road wins are gold.
4) When the time is appropriate, we'll pay attention to all conference races.
5) During these first couple months, these recaps are all about identifying which teams matter and which don't.

So with that, notable Day 1 results.

Catastrophic loss of the day: Niagara 77, @St Bonaventure 75 - that's going to look pretty terrible for a probable bubble team in March

lolwat score of the day: Indiana St 90, @Indiana 69 - wat

Impact results:
UCLA 63, Georgia Tech 60 - neutral site wins have some value
Georgia Southern 85, @Wake Forest 83 - could be catastrohpic, but Wake will have chances to recover
Texas A&M 88, West Virginia 65 - both are likely tourney teams, so eventually this result will be minimized by other key results, but still. Big positive sign for the SEC on day 1
@Missouri 74, Iowa St 59 - again, SEC just winning these games is a big deal

Interesting results:
Delaware 76, @Richmond 63 - another building block for the Colonial's conference RPI, which has been really good in previous years
@North Carolina 86, Northern Iowa 69 - perhaps interesting to those who assume UNI is at their strength of previous years; they're not
@Navy 71, Pittsburgh 62 - not quite as bad as you'd think since this was a true road game for Pitt
Lamar 74, @Tulsa 67 - on the one hand, Lamar is the rare competent Southland team and Tulsa is bad. On the other hand...it's the Southland, for cripes' sake
@Alabama 72, Memphis 70
UC Riverside 74, California 66
@Monmouth 79, Bucknell 78 - Bucknell is supposed to be an elite mid-major this year...this is a very harmful loss for at-large chances, which might've existed coming into the year

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Maybe I'll do a bracket, but this S-Curve should suffice. Some tweaks made from the offseason bracket.

Quick conference-by-conference thoughts.

ACC - I have them with 8 teams....seems about right. I don't see potential to max out to double-digit teams this year, but the conference has a high floor. Plenty of quality win chances to go around.
B1G - I see a beefy middle of the conference, I expect the top 7-8 teams to be solid in the non-con and build up good resumes. This leads to plenty of quality win chances for bubble teams in March.
Big 12 - The round-robin schedule hurts this conference just a little bit, as I see the bottom few teams dragging down the league. They should get their usual number of bids.
SEC - The big story to me last year was the work this conference did OOC. Much better SoS numbers across the board, and now the talent on the teams are starting to catch up. Not sure if a 3rd team behind UK and UF can rise very high in the S-Curve, but this might be the year they get back to 5 or 6 teams in the NCAAs.
Pac-12 - Ew.
Big East - They've got some problems establishing a second big-time program behind Nova....it's slowly catching up to them in seeding.
AAC - Very curious to see their seeds in March. They've been disrespected in previous years, now we'll see how much Wichita changes the math. I've seeded them conservatively for now, because I'm not completely sold the AAC hate will go away yet.